Today's mobile computing devices, such as tablets and smartphones, are designed to be portable and lightweight, yet still have ample processing power for handling the processing demands of commonly-used software applications. As a result, many business locations such as kiosks and retail stores use mobile computing devices to facilitate business transaction with customers. For example, a customer of a wireless carrier may visit the carrier's retail store because they are interested in upgrading their phone or changing their phone plan. Using a mobile computing device at the wireless carrier's retail store location, the customer can log into their account to look up their existing plan and billing information, discuss and compare their plan options with a sales representative while simultaneously viewing new smartphones throughout the store, and authorize changes to their account immediately upon making a decision.
However, the usefulness and portability of mobile computing devices also makes them popular targets for thieves who can easily slip them into a backpack or small bag undetected and carry them out of the retail store. The loss resulting from a stolen mobile computing device is twofold. Clearly, the business owner suffers a financial loss from having to replace the stolen device. However, a far greater loss can be suffered if the thief is able to obtain and use the business owner's sensitive or confidential information that may be stored on the mobile computing device. Further, there is a similar risk of loss to a customer who may have been logged into the mobile computing device at the time it was taken.
Current systems and methods for preventing theft of mobile computing devices seek to solve the problem by attaching the mobile computing device to one end of a wire or cable “tether” while the other end is anchored to some stationary object within the retail store (e.g., desk, display table). However, this approach is cumbersome and undesirable because it limits one of the most useful aspects of the mobile computing device: its portability. Further, many business owners have labored to build a brand and reputation with their customers that is based on a mutual trust, and tethering calls that trust into question in the minds of their customers.
Some businesses have certain legal, regulatory and compliance requirements related to inactivity logouts of user sessions operating on a mobile computing device. For example, one such requirement may mandate that an inactive user session is logged out after no more than 180 seconds of inactivity. However, such timeouts leaves ample time for a thief to swipe a mobile computing device on which a customer's user session has been established and make it out of the retail store location before the inactivity timeout occurs, allowing the thief to maintain the user session and accordingly gain access the customer's account and personal information.